I noticed when I logged in to GoDaddy that they have a "Twitter Check" for all domain names now. Meaning, when you buy a domain name, you can see if the Twitter name is taken as well, and if not, then you can register it (through Twitter).

Now, I'm not going to bitch about domain squatters, since I own several hundred myself, and have bought, sold, and leased them with good success and ROI. Domains are virtual real estate.

But Twitter is virtual real estate that is free to get, but ILLEGAL TO BUY OR SELL!

So when someone is squatting on a name and hasn't logged in since their first post about grandma's cupcakes in 2008, and it's a good name that a client wants, it really, really sucks.

Because Twitter makes it virtually impossible to get ahold of these unused names, except in very obvious trademark infringment cases.

YouTube is the same way.

So in my opinion, GoDaddy encouraging people to snap up the twitter names is a really poor move on GoDaddy's part. If it were possible to buy and sell Twitter names, I would have zero problem with it.

But since you can get them for free, and then it's virtually impossible to get ahold of the squatter, as well as against the law to pay them money for the name, it's a virtual hostage situation. It's not like "the person got there first and purchased the domain name, so if you want it bad enough, buy it from them."

It's, they got there first, paid nothing, and now it's impossible to get it from them, EVEN IF THEY'RE NOT USING IT AT ALL! Did I mention YouTube is the same way?

I enjoy GoDaddy's risque marketing but shame on them for encouraging Twitter squatting.